Helping Wounded Christians Heal

You Can’t Save Your Face and Your Ass at the Same Time

Refer to STEP 2:I refuse to continue living my life pursuing self-defeating behavior.

In 12-step recoverygroups, especially AA, interesting aphorisms develop, which are remarkably accurate. One is that “you can’t save your face and your ass at the same time.” What this means is that people can’t paint a rosy picture about their lives and make any progress with their recovery. If someone chooses to save face, then their fundamental dishonesty puts their recovery from substance abuse in jeopardy. To recover, a person must be rigorously honest. If they choose to save face by not being forthright, then their “ass” will be vulnerable to relapse.

If this is true for people in AA, which it is, then it is even truer for people who have experienced religious abuse. Although Christians should be the most candid and transparent people in the world, they are not. In fact, a large percentage of Christians will go to nearly any length to protect their image. They want everybody to think they “have it all together,” even when it’s the furthest thing from the truth.

When these people are religiously abused, instead of being honest about their experience, they internalize it and put on a happy face for the world to see. Practicing denial, they choose to save face, suffering the consequences, which are shame, loss of self worth, and a host of other debilitating emotions. In this sense, they sacrifice themselves by withdrawing emotionally, physically, or both. Placing their image above being real, they prefer to nurse their wounds in private rather than come clean and get the help they need to stabilize.

Choosing to save their face rather than their ass, they save neither, as they pursue this self-defeating strategy. It’s one of the reasons why recovery is so necessary. When you think about it, isn’t seeking recovery from abusiveness really the Christian thing to do, anyway?

2 Responses

Does this article about denial to save face apply to present-day denial techniques in 12 Step Fellowships today?

Here are some facts that can’t be denied (but often are):

Early A.A. took its basic ideas from the Bible. The ideas were honed and applied by five successful Christian organizations that preceded A.A. by many years and helped thousands of drunks. They were: Evangelists, Gospel and Rescue Missions, YMCA lay workers, the Salvation Army, and the Young People’s Society of Christian Endeavor.

Early A.A. required a belief in God; a decision to make Jesus Christ one’s Lord and Savior; daily Bible study; daily Quiet Time; and frequent old fashioned prayer meetings.

Early A.A. had a docuented success rate of 75% in Akron, Ohio, and soon a 93% success rate in Cleveland. The numbers were small, but the success rates were astonishing.

But, in 1939, a great face-saving effort took place. “God” was removed from the Second, Third, and Eleventh Step. Strange New Thought and other “gods” were inserted in A.A.’s text – Czar of the Universe, Spirit of the Universe, and others. Soon AAs themselves were inventing their own conception of “a” god. At first they called “it” a “higher power.” Soon the “higher power” was often called a tree, a rock, Something, Somebody, Ralph, a light bulb, and a host of other ridiculous monikers.

Why? To sell books, that’s for sure. To increase membership, that’s for sure. To make the door so wide and the road so broad that anyone, anyone at all, could join as long as they said they had a problem with alcohol. Treatment centers followed suit. Scholars, writers, and publishers followed suit.

The face-saving? Make up a “god” that anyone will accept.

The denial? Deny reverence of and the necessity fo Almighty God, Jesus Christ, and the Bible – the sources of the very power that had made early A.A. so successful.

Will this change? Not as far as the Fellowships are concerned. But it can change and is changing as far as members and non-members are concerned. There are tens if not hundreds of thousands of Christians in 12 Step Fellowships today. They are learning about early A.A. They are learning about the role that was played and can still be played in recovery by the Creator, His Son Jesus Christ, and the Bible. They are learning that the nonsense “higher power” is just that — nonsense — a devilish thought planted in minds that are vulnerable to some “easy way out.”

What is changing? There is a huge and growing Christian recovery movment that is not hostile to A.A., nor to God, nor to the Bible, nor to unbeliever members in recovery. The movement simply seeks to assure Christians that they can belong; they can believe what they like; and they needn’t surrender to save face.

In May, i will pick up my 18-year chip at AA. It has been instrumental in my recovery and has given me many of the tools I’ve used to recover from religious abuse as well. I’m very grateful to AA for this.

From day one, however, I have been uncomfortable with defining God as anything you please. One girl said that the God of her understanding helped her write better S&M articles, which I found appalling and flabbergasting. It was only when I learned to take what I needed, leaving the rest behind, that I was able to function well within AA. Again, I’m grateful for AA and recommend it to anybody who has a drinking problem—unequivocally.